Cresskill, New Jersey

Cresskill is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough's population was 8,573, reflecting an increase of 827 (+10.7%) from the 7,746 counted in the 2000 Census, which had in turn increased by 188 (+2.5%) from the 7,558 counted in the 1990 Census. This town got its name from "Cress", referring to the watercress which grew in its streams, and "Kill", referring to the stream passing through.

Cresskill was incorporated as a borough by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on May 8, 1894, from portions of Palisades Township. The borough was formed during the "Boroughitis" phenomenon then sweeping through Bergen County, in which 26 boroughs were formed in the county in 1894 alone. A portion of the borough was annexed by Alpine in 1904.

Railroads provided access from Cresskill to customers in New York City, including a chicken hatchery that was the world's largest by 1897. Railroad access helped make Cresskill the home of Camp Merritt, the major debarkation point for more than a million American troops being sent abroad to fight in World War I. A large obelisk memorial (referred to by locals as "The Monument"), or "The Circle Monument" was dedicated in 1924, set in the middle of the Camp Merritt Memorial Circle at the intersection of Madison Avenue and Knickerbocker Road (CR 505), to commemorate the fact.

High school

A high school (also secondary school, senior school, secondary college) is a school that provides adolescents with part or all of their secondary education. It may come after primary school or middle school and be followed by higher education or vocational training.

Terminology

The term "high school" originated in Scotland, with the world's oldest high school being Edinburgh's Royal High School from 1505. The Royal High School was used as a model for the first public high school in the United States, Boston Latin School founded in Boston, Massachusetts.

The precise stage of schooling provided by a high school differs from country to country, and may vary within the same jurisdiction. In all of New Zealand and Malaysia, along with most of Britain and parts of Australia, Bangladesh and Canada, high school means the same thing as secondary school, but instead of starting in 9th grade, these "secondary schools" begin at ages 11 or 12.

Country by country

Australia

In Australia, high school is a secondary school, from Year 7 or Year 8 through to Year 12, varying from state to state. High school immediately follows primary (elementary) school; therefore, a Year-7 Australian high-school student is sometimes as young as 12. In Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory, the term "high school" generally refers to Years 7–10, whereas the term "College" is used for Years 11–12. In Victoria the term "secondary college" has largely replaced the term "high school" following the reforms of the Labor Government in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Some schools have retained the name "high school" (such as Melbourne High School) and many have now dropped the "secondary" and are simply known as "college".

Cresskill High School

Cresskill High School is a four-year comprehensive public high school that serves students in ninth through twelfth grades from Cresskill in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States, operating as the lone secondary school of the Cresskill Public Schools.

As of the 2013-14 school year, the school had an enrollment of 555 students and 63.0 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 8.8:1. There were 14 students (2.5% of enrollment) eligible for free lunch and 9 (1.6%) eligible for reduced-cost lunch.

Cresskill's students in grades seven to twelve had attended Tenafly High School, until the initial wing of Cresskill's high school, constructed at a cost of $2.8 million, opened in October 1962. Students already in the Tenafly district for grades 11 and 12 when the Cresskill school opened remained at Tenafly High School until graduation, which meant that the first graduating class was the Class of 1965.

Awards, recognition and rankings

The school was the 18th-ranked public high school in New Jersey out of 339 schools statewide in New Jersey Monthly magazine's September 2014 cover story on the state's "Top Public High Schools", using a new ranking methodology. The school had been ranked 29th in the state of 328 schools in 2012, after being ranked 55th in 2010 out of 322 schools listed. The magazine ranked the school 2008 out of 316 schools. The school was ranked 15th in the magazine's September 2006 issue, which included 316 schools across the state. Schooldigger.com ranked the school 22nd out of 381 public high schools statewide in its 2011 rankings (an increase of 90 positions from the 2010 ranking) which were based on the combined percentage of students classified as proficient or above proficient on the mathematics (97.1%) and language arts literacy (99.3%) components of the High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA).